


Not To Blame

by Swashbuckler



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), Flashpoint (Comics), The Flash (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Depression, Flashpoint (DCU), Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-01 23:42:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16294181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swashbuckler/pseuds/Swashbuckler
Summary: "It's not your fault."They both say that a lot.





	Not To Blame

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a happy fic.

“It’s not your fault.” 

Iris says that a lot. She just wishes that Hartley would believe it.

Wally was his best friend. He’d practically been his brother. 

She’d found him here with Wally one evening last December, fitfully scrubbing at the frost forming on his headstone like it was the same ice that took him from them - like if he could get rid of it it’d bring him back. 

He’d been so panicked, so desperate, that he hadn’t heard her approach, nor her gently say his name. Only when she’d put her hand on his shoulder and Hartley had finally looked at her did the desperation crack, and, finally, the pain had flooded out; hot, guttural anguish ripping through the silence of the cemetery as Iris hauled him up onto his feet, hugging him as tightly as he was clinging to her as he sobbed into her shoulder.

“It’s not your fault.”

* * *

“It’s not your fault.”

Hartley says that a lot. He just wishes that Iris would believe it. 

Wally had been her nephew. He’d practically been her son. 

She goes silent a lot, and while he never could stand silence, it’s not for his sake that he tries to get her to talk. He knows that when Iris is silent with that look in her eye that she’s listening to herself, thinking on every way things could have gone, could have been different. Sometimes it will all bubble out of her - “I should’ve- I should never have-” - and Hartley takes her hand and talks to her gently, for as long as she needs him to, until her breathing evens out and the venomous thoughts have lost their sting.

“It’s not your fault.”

* * *

“It’s not your fault.”

They both say that a lot. They’ll say it as often as the other needs them to, until they believe it. 

They say it a lot because they mean it. 

But they also mean what they don’t say, which follows silently after every time it’s said.

“It’s not your fault.” 

_It’s mine._


End file.
